


She Had a Death Wish

by Legacy_Scarlettpeony (Scarlettpeony)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Baby Morgana, F/M, Gen, Gorlois is Morgause's father, Past Ygraine/Gorlois romance, Pre-Series, Suicide, Unrequited Love, Ygraine is Morgause's mother, attempted infanticide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-09
Updated: 2011-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28239198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlettpeony/pseuds/Legacy_Scarlettpeony
Summary: Agravaine remembers when Morgana’s mother Vivienne killed herself.
Relationships: Agravaine & Morgana (Merlin), Agravaine/Vivienne (Merlin), Gorlois/Vivienne (Merlin), Uther Pendragon/Vivienne (Merlin), Ygraine de Bois & Tristan de Bois & Agravaine de Bois, Ygraine de Bois/Gorlois (Merlin), Ygraine de Bois/Uther Pendragon (Merlin)
Kudos: 1





	She Had a Death Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ella_rose88 on my Weekly After-Episode Challenge. It was based on this long-winded theory on Agravaine I posted [HERE](https://camelot-love.livejournal.com/993508.html?thread=20199140#t20199140) and [HERE](https://camelot-love.livejournal.com/993508.html?thread=20199396#t20199396), and why he might be helping Morgana. Y' know, since the show didn't bother to explain it.

Although he knew Morgana thought very little of him really, Agravaine wanted to believe that one day she would see how alike they were and come to respect him because of that. Maybe even love him.  
  
They were both the rejected sibling of three; they both hated their respective younger (more favoured) siblings. Morgana hated Arthur for taking what was rightfully hers as the oldest Pendragon child. Agravaine hated Ygraine for... well, he just hated her.  
  
Seeing Morgana lying lifeless and devoid of colour reminded Agavaine very much of when her mother, Vivienne, had died.  
  
He had always believed it was his sister's fault.  
  
Ygraine had been considered by all and sundry to be a living angel. There was not a queen in Albion who did more to help the poor, the starving and the desolate. She had done her best in her short five-year-reign beside Uther to ensure that every man, woman and child in Camelot was fed, and she was worshipped by people as a result.  
  
He knew that his resentment of her had started out as simple jealousy. He had not hated her but simply been too different to her for them to get along.  
  
Ygraine knew that the barriers between her and her brother were just too distant.  
  
"My love for you is very much unconditional," Ygraine had once told Agravaine once, "because goodness knows you and I have nothing in common."  
  
Agravaine did not realise that Ygraine meant that in a good way, not a bad one. And so the seeds of discontent grew year after year. And that morning when the knights found Ygraine wandering barefooted and weary from a close encounter with death, Agravaine had felt she should have died right then.  
  
That was the day Vivienne, so Ygraine said, killed herself.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
But even pure, sweet, gentle, lighter-than-air Ygraine had a dirty little secret.  
  
As a child, she has always been closer with their brother Tristan. Agravaine supposed it was easier for Ygraine to prefer Tristan because she had always been a natural mother and she had babied him more like a mother than a sister. And as for Tristan, well, he had been too young to remember their real mother who died when he was two, Ygraine was five and Agravaine was ten.  
  
Ygraine was the closest thing to a mother he had.  
  
To them, Agravaine had just been their _boring_ older brother.  
  
Yet he did not hate Ygraine. There was nothing about her to hate because she was a good person, better than he could possibly be. He just couldn't get along with her because they were two very different people. She took after their mother, Tristan took after their father, and Agravaine was very much their grandfather's creature. It was the one thing he could pride himself in, for their grandfather was the wealthy and powerful warlord-king Cunedda.  
  
Ygraine disliked Agravaine but that didn't she did not love him for being her brother. For Agravaine it wasn't enough. Instead he wasted time pining over the love for someone who would never return his feelings even for a price and neglected the people who were willing to offer it to him for free...  
  
That time waster, of course, was Lady Vivienne of Prydar.  
  
Vivienne had started out as a disgustingly rich Cernew heiress who had been the only child of a rich Duke not far from where Gorlois's family held residence in the Dukedom of Tintagel.  
  
Tried though he did, Agravaine was never able to catch Vivienne’s glance. She knew well of his feelings for her and often asked him to carry out the most menial tasks she could think of just to see if he would do them.  
  
And he would, much to Ygraine's despair.  
  
"You deserve better," she once told him. "You deserve someone who can appreciate the love you have to offer, not abuse it."  
  
He refused to listen; he and Ygraine would never be close.  
  
“You’re just jealous,” he told her spitefully.  
  
“What?” Ygraine had chuckled, not understand him. “Why on earth would I be jealous of Vivienne?”  
  
Agravaine gave her the cold eyes, “Because she is after that was once yours.”  
  
That had silenced Ygraine.  
  
He had touched on the greatest secret she possessed.  
  
It was a secret only known to a select few and, indeed, was the story surrounding the circumstances of how she was rendered barren. It had not been a defect from birth but a defect from delivery. Very few people knew this fact that prior to her marriage with Uther, Ygraine gave birth to a child out of wedlock; a daughter, stillborn.  
  
Ygraine had been very ill in the weeks following the birth; she had caught an infection which gave her a high fever and the loss of the child flung her into a state of understandable despair.  
  
But once she recovered her health, she seemed to pull herself back together.  
  
“I’m going to start fresh,” she had told her brothers when she was well enough to see them again. “There is no point crying over what cannot be...”  
  
The father of the dead baby was the best-kept secret in the Dubois clan, and Agravaine thankfully had nothing but respect for the man in question: the aforementioned handsome but penniless nobleman Gorlois.  
  
By the end, the only thing Ygraine had left of her relationship with Gorlois was a gift he gave her of a bracelet. It should have been given to his sister or his daughter; but he had no sisters and his daughter was dead, so he gave it to her.  
  
Gorlois was one man who Agravaine just _could not_ bring himself to hate. He looked at that young man and saw everything he wanted to be. There was a lack of need to resent him, and that came from a more cynical route too.  
  
Gorlois’s family was impoverished despite their grand old name.  
  
He was hardly a threat to anyone.  
  
Still, Ygraine's dirty little secret made Agravaine feel superior for the most shallow of reasons; this was proof that his sister was not as clean and pure as all would have them believe.  
  
Nonetheless, the man who eventually struck the deal to marry Agravaine’s crestfallen sister still believed in the purity of Ygraine despite _knowing_ of her pregnancy and tragic loss.  
  
Uther was just blinded by her the moment he clapped eyes on her and very quickly condemned Ygraine to a classic forced marriage.  
  
That was a disappointment to Agravaine, and not just because he _hated_ the upcoming and wealthy Pendragon clan. He had hoped that one-day Gorlois would find the courage to sweep Ygraine off her feet and take her away. Not because he wanted Ygraine to leave but because all and sundry knew that Vivienne would go to Hell and back to have Gorlois for herself. With him snapped up and away, her wandering eye would have to find someone else to latch onto.  
  
However with Uther in possession of Ygraine, and Gorlois in a vulnerable stop, Vivienne played her card. She was wealthy, he was poor. She could settle all his family's debts and keep the Dukedom afloat. By the end, Gorlois was so desperate for peace and quiet that he agreed to marry Vivienne despite his intense dislike of her as a person.  
  
That was the hardest thing for Agravaine; Vivienne had married the one man in the world he just couldn't hate. And Ygraine decided this was her moment to give her advice that he would usually ignore.  
  
"You just have to tell yourself that it’s over," she had said. "That's what I told myself. If you value any goodness at all, you will honour Gorlois by respecting the fact that he is a married man... and adultery is a sin."  
  
For once Agravaine knew Ygraine was right, and he never felt closer to her then.  
  
"How do you cope with it all, sister?" he had asked her.  
  
"How do you mean?" Ygraine asked.  
  
"With Uther," Agravaine had said frankly. "I mean, you obviously don't love him and you never will. Don't you find it hard to wake up every morning and see a face that is someone other than Gorlois?"  
  
Ygraine had swallowed proudly and said: "I respect Uther and I care for him a great deal. He is of my station while Gorlois is not. I may not love Uther as much as I love Gorlois... but I live with it. Our grandfather wanted this. I couldn't stop it. It gave me a chance to escape my past and be someone new. This is my fate, even if it's the death of me..."  
  
How ironic her words seemed now.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Agravaine did as Ygraine did and lived with it... until Morgana was born.  
  
He had sworn to himself never to even look in Vivienne's direction for Gorlois's sake, even though it was clear from a mile off that neither of them was very happy. Gorlois found it hard to get day to day being married to a woman he disliked; and her manic love for him made it all the harder to pretend to feel otherwise. He was perfectly kind to her but he chose Uther's assignments away from Camelot rather than spending any time with her.  
  
It would have been so easy to take advantage of Vivienne's deterioration; she seemed to grow madder and madder, day by day. Soon her desperate bid to get revenge on Gorlois for neglecting her, and the best way to do that was to attack the thing that everyone loved Gorlois for; his honour.  
  
Not that she would have turned to Agravaine to enact that revenge. He was still meaningless to her and now, rather than abusing his 'good' nature along with her other beaus as when she was unmarried, the only time she ever spoke to him was to ask him whether there was any news from Gorlois. And even then she only asked him because Ygraine was busy. Always it was the same answer: _"Uther sent him here... Uther sent him there... This is very important to the king... He must protect the security of Camelot..."_  
  
Because goodness knows Ygraine wasn't doing her bit.  
  
That made Agravaine and Tristan anxious. None knew the actual reason at that point as to how and why Ygraine was unable to conceive, including Uther.  
  
"Do you share your bed with the king regularly?" Agravaine asked her when the three of them were in private. "You only had to share it once with Gorlois the last time you..."  
  
Ygraine was used to this uncomfortable discussion: "I use to share it with him _every night_. Even when I didn't want to. But I just can't take it anymore. It's been over a year and nothing."  
  
Tristan suggested stress: "You are under a lot of strain to have an heir, a boy..."  
  
"Maybe Uther just isn't up to the task," Agravaine grumbled. "Maybe what we really need is to get Gorlois back in here, do what he did last time and pass the baby off as Uther's."  
  
Ygraine glared at him.  
  
"This is serious, brother," she scolded him. "I would appreciate it if you resisted your snarled remarks."  
  
Agravaine had stopped the snarled remarks but still persisted with the issue. "It is an option worth considering," he told her. "Camelot needs an heir. It shouldn't matter whether it is a Pendragon or not, provided Uther believes it is a Pendragon."  
  
"The very idea is disgusting," Ygraine snapped. "I'll hear no more of this!"  
  
It was very soon after that when Gorlois returned from the northern borders and shortly after that it was learned that Vivienne was expecting her first child. To anyone else it would have been a joyous occasion, and Ygraine would have given anything for it to have been her, as the strain of trying to become pregnant was starting to play havoc with her health.  
  
Not that Vivienne's pregnancy made her any better in health; she seemed distraught and frightened the whole time. It made her even more of a handful for Gorlois to handle and Agravaine, unable to resist his concern for Vivienne, asked Gorlois straight what was wrong.  
  
"You have been a good friend," Gorlois told Agravaine when they were alone and could speak in confidence. "You always kept my secret about Ygraine and... I trust you with this secret too."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Gorlois was hesitant but filled with sweet honesty, "This child is not mine."  
  
Agravaine's heart fell to the floor in that moment; so Vivienne had enacted her revenge and it had backfired on her. Yet he was not angry with Vivienne - how could he be angry at her for what she did. He wasn't even angry at Gorlois for driving her to it - as he knew that no matter what he did, Vivienne couldn't help loving him and Gorlois did all he could to tolerate her. No, he was angry at the man who had ruined her.  
  
"Are you certain?"  
  
"Beyond doubt," Gorlois told him. "Vivienne and I have not shared a bed for six months."  
  
"What will you do?" Agravaine asked anxiously. "Will you expose her as a whore? Divorce her? Cast the child out?"  
  
"No, no," Gorlois replied. "Of course I won't. The shame would be too great for everyone involved. It would be unfair. I would be a cuckold, my wife a whore and this child an infamous bastard. I fear this child is already too much for Vivienne to bear. Besides your sister has begged me not reveal the truth..."  
  
"What truth?"  
  
Gorlois refused to tell that part and merely said that soon he would find out. Funnily enough he realised just a few moments later in the audience room when Ygraine coldly refused to take Uther's hand. After that she distanced herself from him entirely. From that moment on, he hated Uther... and not for humiliating his sister. In fact, he was very uncaring to Ygraine's side of things until she towards Uther was a trend she intended to torture him with for a while yet.  
  
"We still need that heir, Ygraine," Agravaine had told her, "No matter how burdensome lying with Uther might be to you now."  
  
Ygraine scoffed, "You don't think I know the sort of man Uther is? There isn't a maidservant serving me he's left untouched."  
  
That knowledge had turned Agravaine's stomach all the more.  
  
"I put up with it in the past because I had the moral high ground," Ygraine went on. "But this time is different. This was only done to humiliate me and pluck up his own selfish ego."  
  
And then Ygraine said something he knew thought she would say:  
  
"I hate him for that," she finished.  
  
"Why would he want to humiliate you?" Agravaine snapped. "It is surely Gorlois and Vivienne who have been humiliated and _all_ unprovoked."  
  
Ygraine scoffed again, "Oh really? You are blinded by your _irrational_ and _unexplainable_ infatuation with Vivienne that you fail to see that she's never given two thoughts for you. The _only_ reason she... did what she did... was to _hurt_ Gorlois. Uther took him away from her, so she decided to humiliate them both."  
  
"Vivienne is pained by the fact that Gorlois does not love her," Agravaine said, and he leaned close to whisper cruelly in Ygraine's ear. "And we both know that isn't Uther's fault, it's yours."  
  
That hurt Ygraine more than words could say.  
  
"It's not my fault how Gorlois feels," she snapped back. "I made my peace with it years ago. Don’t blame me just because you cannot make peace with your own feelings.”  
  
She turned to walk away.  
  
“And do you know the worst thing?” asked Ygraine, making her final words on the subject. “You haven’t even asked me why what Uther did this time hurt me so much. Because _you_ know it has nothing to do with love.”  
  
He didn’t find out the truth until Tristan told him later. Ygraine had gone to see Gaius and he had examined her to see why she had yet to conceive a child; a combination of infection and the difficulty of giving birth to that stillborn daughter all those years ago had rendered her barren.  
  
And Ygraine never quite forgave Agravaine for not having the foresight to see that, just for once, she needed him as her older brother to realise how much she was hurting.  
  
Agravaine told himself he didn’t care until finally, he truly did stop caring.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Vivienne went mad after Morgana’s birth.  
  
To avoid to looks of all those ‘in the know’ – consisting chiefly of Gorlois, Ygraine and Agravaine – Gorlois had taken the opportunity to take time away from the army and transport his wife home to Tintagel. Stories very quickly began to sweep in over Vivienne’s growing insanity. They said that she was being tormented by the belief that the child inside her was evil.  
  
Report after report told of the wild and disturbing statements Vivienne had made to Gorlois about it. “This child is a demon from Hell,” she would say hysterically. “It’s going to cause so much misery. It’s going to cause so much pain. I just want to get rid of it...!”  
  
After that news came from Tintagel to Camelot that Vivienne had taken another fall down a flight of steps: she had tried this several times already in a desperate attempt to miscarry. She always failed.  
  
Gorlois wrote to Ygraine about it; Agravaine had snuck a look at the letter hidden inside one of her draws.

>   
>    
>  _I have been forced to lock her away inside her chambers with no less than five servants to look after her. Every source of exit has been blocked. Every harmful object removed and locked away. Every night we are forced to restrain her lest she desperately throw herself against the walls. I feel cruel in doing in this but – God! There is no other way. Either I do this or leave her be and let her kill herself trying to get rid of this child.  
>    
>  Her dreams have never been so volatile before. Whenever I go to see her, she tells me frantically about the many terrible and revolting crimes that this child will supposedly commit. It makes me frightened; I wonder how much of it is her madness and I wonder how much of it is true. Can people truly ultimately be evil?  
>    
>  I fear it will not get better when the girl is finally born either (she seems to think it will be a ‘she’) as Vivienne told me, calm as you like, that when the child is born she would kill her. _
> 
> _She said, “I know everyone will think me a monster when I do it, but I don’t care. I will prevent a great evil.”_

  
  
Ygraine’s response had been reluctant but she had said it nonetheless; that they should return to Camelot so that Gaius could treat her. That basically meant drugging her until she was either made calm or made quiet.  
  
Nonetheless, Gorlois obeyed the suggestion.  
  
Funnily enough, when Gaius began treating Vivienne she seemed to respond very well. Her dreams became less frequent and she seemed less hysterical. Vivienne was locked away from all prying eyes and denied access to Morgana, who by this point was nearly eight months old, but people talked about her less and less.  
  
Elsewhere, the once fine and noble Cunedda finally died and left the last of his wealth divided up between his grandchildren albeit not equally. Ygraine received the most because it was part of the dowry agreement that all the lands and half the property (Including the lands owned by the Dubois siblings’ father, who was not even Cunedda’s son but his son-in-law) he owned would go to Ygraine and Uther upon his death, while Tristan and Agravaine got the rest equally.  
  
It gave Agravaine yet another reason to hate Uther. Tristan could expect to get the least as the younger son, but Agravaine was the eldest and should have received the most upon his grandfather’s death.  
  
Agravaine had well and truly been cheated.  
  
It was around that time that the final act to the saga that was Lady Vivienne’s life began.  
  
It was on a grey Sunday afternoon. She sat alone in a chair staring out below at the courtyard. Her eyes were fixated on her husband who had just returned from scouting with the king. She could not bring herself to look at Uther. It turned her stomach.  
  
A knock came at the door.  
  
She nervously turned her head; it was one of her many maids who opened the door.  
  
It was Agravaine with a potion from Gaius. He had specially requested permission from the physician to drop it off as he was just passing by and wished to see how the Lady was doing now she was supposed to be feeling better.  
  
The maid took the potion and said she would make sure her mistress took it. But then Vivienne said she was quite happy to receive a visitor.  
  
“Are you sure Duke Gorlois would approve, my lady?” the maid asked.  
  
“He said only this morning how much better I was looking,” the lady had replied in an uncommonly sweet voice. Her natural tone was usually more cut and cynical. “I would like to see another face other than my husband and Gaius.”  
  
So Agravaine was admitted.  
  
It had been a long time since he had so much seen Vivienne in person let alone spoken to her. She was much changed from the days when she used to cruelly make the men who pursued her carry out meaningless tasks to impress her while she stared the whole time at Gorlois. She seemed fragile and demure looking. It rather reminded Agravaine of how Ygraine had looked after her baby died. The meek smile drew him in immediately.  
  
“My lord,” Vivienne said softly, not shifting an inch in her chair. “Forgive my appearance only I have grown accustomed to just having my husband and servants for company.”  
  
“Not at all,” Agravaine said fawningly. “You look just as lovely as ever you did...”  
  
Vivienne tried to look flattered but even after all these years, she was still unmoved by the queen elder brother. Maybe if it had been Tristan, who had more guile, more cheer, more _life_ in him... but not Agravaine.  
  
Still, she did best to pretend.  
  
“How is your sister the queen?”  
  
Agravaine’s face dropped a little; she had moved on to his family so quickly it felt like a slap in the face. “My sister is very well, thank you. She was pleased to hear that you are more recovered.”  
  
Vivienne smiled, unconvinced.  
  
“I hope to speak to her when I am better,” she told him plainly. “There is something important I wish to... warn her about.”  
  
Agravaine nodded, uninterested in talking of Ygraine.  
  
“Have you seen your daughter?”  
  
Vivienne’s face struggled not to twitch.  
  
“No, not yet,” she told him calmly. “Gorlois thinks I am not well enough but I try to assure him that I have made peace with my demons.”  
  
Agravaine beamed, “I am very glad to hear that.”  
  
“Yes,” Vivienne said indifferently. “I know now what I must do...”  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
One morning the castle at Camelot had awoken to find the queen was missing. Uther's immediate reaction, of course, was to panic and expect the worst. They had not been on the best of terms over the last year but Ygraine's unwillingness to be anything more than borderline civil to Uther made him seek her approval all the more.  
  
The truth was he was desperate to have one last pop at conceiving an heir. He had a plan, and he needed to resume nuptial relations with her in order to do it. But after three tiresome years of trying, Ygraine had not the energy to even try any more.  
  
Not to mention the willingness; she knew Uther had betrayed her and he knew she knew. And she wanted to hurt him in the only way she knew how, with his love.  
  
So he sent the knights out to search for her.  
  
That was when Gorlois realised that his mentally unstable wife had escaped and taken Morgana - whom he had kept away from her for the child's safety – with her. Her personal maids had been drugged and the nurse looking after the child had been bludgeoned to death.  
  
Panic had set in the man’s heart. He knew Morgana was not really his daughter but he was worried nonetheless.  
  
Everyone was worried as all the court knew Vivienne was mad and had wished death on the child since its birth. "It is evil," she had claimed. "It cannot be allowed to live!"  
  
Gorlois realised immediately that Vivienne was out to complete her long-awaited task.  
  
She had led him to believe she was better... but it had all been a trick.  
  
Agravaine realised that too. _“I know now what I must do...”_ she had said.  
  
She had decided exactly how she was going to expose the child.  
  
The scouts searched all through the morning before they finally found the queen trying to make her way back to Camelot, drenched wet and freezing cold, clutching the dry child to her. When she saw her brothers and Gorlois amongst the men, she had swiftly passed the child to Gorlois before collapsing from exhaustion and coldness. She was taken back to Camelot where Gaius treated her for pneumonia.  
  
Uther was distraught, more so it seemed about Ygraine than the child.  
  
Gorlois was frantic for everyone involved; he loved Ygraine, he was fond of the child and he felt responsible for Vivienne.  
  
Once Ygraine was recovered, she was able to explain what happened.  
  
She had awakened early and gone to her window. She had then caught sight of Vivienne wandering away from the castle in her nightdress, haggard and in disarray, carrying Morgana in her arms and heading for the Darkling Woods. Without thinking Ygraine had pulled on her boots, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and followed after her.  
  
Ygraine tracked Vivienne for the whole morning until finally she reached the edge of the forest and caught up with her. She followed her across the grassy knolls for another mile or so until finally, they came to a cliff edge overlooking a lake.  
  
It was at this point Ygraine said she had confronted Vivienne, too frightened of her running away and losing her if she’d done it before that moment.  
  
“You don’t have to do this,” Ygraine began calmly.  
  
Vivienne’s manic black hair was all a cloud of knots; her blue eyes were bloodshot and her skin was so see-though that every vein was visible. She already looked dead.  
  
“Yes I do,” the madwoman said. “There is no other way.”  
  
“I lost my own daughter,” Ygraine told her frankly. “I cannot stand by and watch you kill yours, not when I have wept these last five years to have what you have now. You won’t be able to live with yourself.”  
  
“I _do not_ intend to live,” Vivienne said straight. “The only way I can be certain Morgana dies is if I throw myself into the deep and hold her until we both drown, or if I leave her right here to die on this cliff for the wolves to tear apart...”  
  
The imagery horrified the queen.  
  
“Can’t you see how wrong this is?” the queen had appealed to the madwoman. “No child deserves to die no matter what you fear they might do in the future.”  
  
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I knew,” Vivienne replied. “You don’t know what it’s like to have _evil_ live inside you.”  
  
Ygraine shook her head, “I don’t believe in evil. I just believe in choices.”  
  
“So,” Vivienne said. “What would you do if you knew that your child would be responsible for suffering of _thousands_ of people?”  
  
The queen swallowed hard.  
  
“I still wouldn’t kill it,” she said.  
  
“You are too good for this world, Ygraine,” Vivienne told her. “You have such a kind heart and yet you are surrounded by so many _evil_ men.”  
  
She had stepped closer to the edge.  
  
“I will not let this child grow up to emulate cruelty,” Vivienne declared. “A child that is pure evil and selfish cannot bring about any good to anyone. If she dies, then I will prevent so much suffering. So I will kill her or die trying...”  
  
She had turned to jump off the cliff.  
  
Ygraine had lurched forward to grab Vivienne’s wrist.  
  
But instead, Vivienne grabbed her wrist.  
  
She noticed the bracelet she wore.  
  
“You always wear it,” Vivienne muttered under her breath, “A reminder of the past?”  
  
“It was a gift from a friend,” Ygraine said calmly.  
  
“I know the mark very well.”  
  
“I don’t deny who it was from.”  
  
"You have no idea how much I wanted you dead all these years..."  
  
Vivienne smiled sinisterly, not letting go of Ygraine’s wrist.  
  
“I knew all along you were following me,” she had told the queen creepily. “I have dreamed of nothing other than this morning, _this moment_ for the last year and a half. I didn’t let on because I wanted to lead you as far as I possibly could. You see, this way, there is no chance of the knights of Camelot being able to save us...”  
  
A struggle ensured.  
  
Ygraine tried to pull them both away from the cliff.  
  
Vivienne used all her strength to drag her the other way.  
  
Ygraine was a more petite woman so her strength quickly started to give out. She grasped onto a nearby rock to try and steady herself. As Vivienne jerked her away from it, Ygraine cut her hands.  
  
The queen grabbed the cloth of Morgana’s blanket and tried to drag her away too.  
  
“Vivienne, stop!” she screamed frantically now, feeling them edge further and further towards death. “Look at what you’re doing! This is murder!”  
  
“I _am_ protecting you,” Vivienne assured her, clearly believing it herself. “I will not let them steal your light. I will not let Uther use your memory to enact cruelty, better for you to die at my hands. Let him forever hate me and blame himself for letting you pity me, just like he should...”  
  
Then, in one swift swoop, Ygraine yanked Morgana out of Vivienne’s arms.  
  
She threw her down onto the long grass with a painful thud. At six-months-old, there was no telling how much damage it might have done.  
  
Ygraine had no time to think as this distraction gave Vivienne the chance she wanted.  
  
She hesitated for only a second, wondering whether to pick up the baby and throw her down into the lake. But then she realised how deserted the cliffside was and how exposed and cold it was. No child would survive out here without protection.  
  
She grabbed hold of Ygraine; wrapping both her now free arms around her whole body and used the rest of her strength to throw them both backwards and into oblivion.  
  
They tipped off the edge and towards the water.  
  
Ygraine didn’t remember the falling. She remembered the faded sound of child cries, the water getting closer and before she knew it, she was under the water.  
  
The weight of Vivienne had slipped away from her as they fell and Ygraine surfaced a few seconds after going under. It was freezing and she looked around the banks for shore.  
  
Then something beneath the water grabbed her and dragged her back down again.  
  
With a deep breath, she plummeted below again.  
  
She looked down; Vivienne was using her last ounce of strength to drag Ygraine down. At that moment the queen no longer cared about helping Vivienne; she just wanted to getaway. She wanted to live.  
  
She fought; kicked, punched, scratched and even bit so escape the witch’s claws. Eventually, she got away and surfaced again.  
  
She took several deep breaths.  
  
The hand came up again to drag her down but it was much weaker this time. It pulled her down again and Ygraine kicked her away again and swam away.  
  
Not once did Vivienne even surface to beg for help. If she had, Ygraine might have listened to that nagging feeling in her chest and gone back for her. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it for her conscious alone, not if Vivienne didn’t really want to be saved; not when she had just attempted regicide and infanticide.  
  
She reached the bank and pulled herself out.  
  
She looked around the lake.  
  
There was no sign of her; that was when Ygraine remembered the baby's cries.  
  
“I admit this,” Ygraine confided to her brothers and Gaius later when she was better to receive visitors and have recounted what happened in full. “I really did think about leaving her there, on that cliffside. I thought about it for a full ten seconds. I thought of how Vivienne had been willing to die to make sure her daughter did not live. I thought of how she believed she was saving me from a worse fate by drowning me with her...”  
  
She had swallowed hard.  
  
“I hate her more than words can say,” the queen confessed. “I cannot understand now why she did what she did... but in _that_ moment after I had nearly died, I wondered if I did. But then common sense kicked in; if I left that child there, that would make me a murderer. I would be carrying out the madness that just minutes ago I had tried to talk Vivienne away from...”  
  
She looked down at the cuts on her hands.  
  
“Then all I could think about was Anna,” she whispered.  
  
All the men looked at each other uneasily. Anna was the name Ygraine used to refer to her dead daughter. It had always been the name she wanted for her daughter; Anna if it was a girl, Arthur if it was a boy.  
  
Of all the men in the room, it was Gaius who stood the most uneasy.  
  
“So I climbed up the cliffside again and I got her,” Ygraine said distantly, “and then I just... walked back the way I came.”  
  
Gaius sighed and placed his hand on her shoulder.  
  
“You were in shock, Ygraine,” he told her soothingly. “You must not feel guilty about what happened.”  
  
“But I should have saved her too...”  
  
“There was nothing you could have done,” Gaius reassured her.  
  
“You shouldn’t feel guilty at all,” Tristan said. “Vivienne was a mad lunatic who tried to _kill you_. If she wanted to live, then she would have let you save her.”  
  
He turned to Agravaine who had stood in the corner, listening to his sister’s story. The dark mark of hate had blotted his mind.  
  
“What say you, brother?” Tristan asked him.  
  
He spoke lowly: “Nobody believes you did any wrong, sister.”  
  
Tristan turned back to Ygraine and embraced her. He whispered carefully, “You did more than most people would have done already. You proved that you are a good, merciful and caring queen... even to those who have wronged you.”  
  
“Uther thinks what happened to you is his fault,” Gaius said.  
  
“It is,” Tristan mumbled.  
  
Agravaine said nothing.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Later that afternoon Agravaine had gone with Gorlois and the other riders to search again for Vivienne’s body, to see whether it had surfaced yet.  
  
They finally did find it lying on the bank of the river laid out like a star; feet in the water still, head cushioned by a bed of dead leaves, and her skin all grey and ominous.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Agravaine overheard Gaius and Gorlois talking.  
  
He was on his way to offer his own consolations. They had all respectfully dressed in the black robes of mourning. Gorlois was watching his daughter Morgana being fed by her new nurse and seemed to be deep in thought. He was just about to knock on the main door when he heard Gaius enter via the side door:  
  
“Are you ever going to tell her the truth?” the physician had asked.  
  
Gorlois turned to his old friend: “That her mother wanted to kill her? Never. Morgana doesn’t need to know. As far as she is concerned, her mother was an ill woman who wanted to die.”  
  
“It is probably for the best.”  
  
“It is for the best,” Gorlois concluded, and he placed a grateful hand on his shoulder. “I want to thank you for everything you tried to do for my wife. Tragically, it was all in vain.”  
  
Gaius looked down guiltily, “I only wish I could have done more.”  
  
“There is something you can do,” Gorlois said, and he looked behind him at the child as he went on, “If Morgana should ever prove to... display the abilities Vivienne had, try your best to treat them. I don’t want my daughter to see the terrible things she used to. Do whatever you can to stop them.”  
  
Gaius nodded.  
  
“I will do my best,” the physician promised. “Would you like me to examine her?”  
  
Gorlois smiled and took Morgana from the nurse to cradle her himself. He then passed her on to Gaius to hold.  
  
“Thank you, Gaius,” he nodded gratefully. “I wish to visit the queen. Is she accepting visitors?”  
  
“She is.”  
  
“Then I will see her,” Gorlois nodded, his voice serious once again. “I’m certain this whole thing will have drummed up bad memories with her. Memories to do with... Anna...”  
  
He cleared his throat.  
  
“I feel I should talk to her about them,” Gorlois said, and he regarded Gaius carefully. “There is something I learned a while ago now that I should have told her. Now, I feel I _must_ tell her.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“I think you know,” were the duke’s last words before he left.  
  
Gaius did not know.  
  
Agravaine turned to walk away; he had heard enough. The knowledge of what he had just learned did not move him in the slightest. He felt nothing for Ygraine’s pain, or even Gorlois’s pain anymore. He felt nothing for any of them. All he could see was Vivienne’s lifeless body in the water... and it haunted him.  
  
He hoped it haunted Ygraine too.  
  
He hoped that Gaius and Gorlois kept their mouths shut.  
  
He hoped whatever Vivienne saw happening to Ygraine in the future happened.  
  
She had played with death, and soon it would be her turn to meet it...  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Then when Ygraine fell pregnant a year after Vivienne’s death, having forgiven Uther and reluctantly conceded to try one last time for that heir he so desperately wanted, Agravaine knew it had to be magic. It had to be what Vivienne saw coming.  
  
And he felt superior again.  
  
But when Ygraine died, Agravaine still cried. First, the Pendragons had taken his beloved Vivienne, now they had taken his sister.  
  
_It was all that boy's fault!_


End file.
